Alexander, Carly, and the Blood Farm

Part 1.1 - The Bradford Basketball Heros

Alexander

Hello, my name is Alexander Phillips, and I'm part of the group known as the Bradford Basketball Hero.

Last year when I was a freshman, I was nothing special, as well as most of my teammates here on the soccer team at Bradford High School.

However, our town itself is known for rather strange stuff besides us, which mainly includes all the hunting of things like coyote, rabbits, and deer, and hiking and camping around the lakes in the area.

There is one more thing that is something that many townspeople, including my friends and I, get the willies from hearing about, so I prefer not to mention it.

Anyways though, back to our big basketball victory that turned my life around.

It happened roughly around the end of the week before spring break, but I personally remember it like yesterday.

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I remember it all, it was me, three other teammates, and our team captain, Brayden, going up against five of the better players from Fredrickson High School, and all of it for the championship trophy.

I had rarely been picked for the games as I was regarded as being among the worst players on the team, while the others were among the best of the best in our school. I mean, just because I'm a tall student at the school doesn't really mean you're meant to be a natural at basketball.

So when the game officially started, I was told by Brayden to "just be an annoying distraction." I felt disgraced, but I didn't really have a choice, as interfering with my teammates' flow would almost certainly cause us to lose the championship game after all of this.

I did my best to slow the other players down, and while it was working, I wasn't happy with it. However, the cheering of my parents and two of my good friends Austin and Josh kept me going.

But although I was supposed to be a distraction, things got really dicey in the last minute of the first part of the game. With the score being 28 to 26 for the Fredrickson players, I heard Brayden call out to me as I was running over to the other team's goal.

"Phillips come on! Get the ball!" He yelled. I was confused, I thought I was only meant to be a distraction of sorts for the other team to have to work around, but this seemed serious more than ever.

However, I soon saw another teammate of mine named James throw the ball right at my face, which almost made me fumble and drop it. But when I got back my senses, I saw the enemy players cornering me, eyes that were practically saying for me to give up.

I couldn't hear anything except the cheering from our school's side on the bleachers, yelling for me to get out of there and get it to someone. Things felt too intense for me, until I looked and saw Brayden waving his hands, saying he was open.

When happened next somehow lasted only 8 seconds at most: I tossed the ball over to Brayden, which left the other players in shock and they tried to run over to stop him, but they were too late. Brayden then shot the ball up, and at first I didn't think it would make it as the ball bounced up on the net. Only moments later however, the ball fell down into the hoop, which left the crowd going wild.

I looked and saw the scoreboard, and I didn't even think it was real or even a possibility.

Home - 30, Guest - 28.

Brayden and I had made a big clutch moment right when the 2nd quarter had ended.

When half time had arrived and our team met up again, I was pulled aside by Brayden, and what he said to me was something I never thought I heard from him.